Featured photo: November, 2018, Turner-Bartels (TBK8) students help mix perlite into the new garden beds during the Grand Opening celebration of the new outdoor garden classroom.

Educational Value of School-Based Gardens After more than two decades studying the impacts of educational schoolyard gardens, social scientists agree that these kind of educational spaces, when utilized as intentional teaching tools, produce significantly higher test scores and other learning outcomes, improve behavior, offer therapeutically valuable engagements, and motivate schoolchildren in their own education.

USF intern testimonial:"Temple Terrace Farm 2 School (now Tampa Bay Farm 2 School) has made an exciting, hands on experience internship for me during the Fall of 2017. By bringing together educators, businesses and volunteers, students K-12 are provided with a diversified set of learning tools involving outdoor activities. By working closely with school personnel this internship helped me identify the real world needs for students and teachers, in terms of school gardening and recycling. In addition, the Temple Terrace Farm 2 school team has made it easy for me to apply my expertise and interest to the organization. This community-based organization is an excellent model for all schools to partner with in order to sustain into the future." Adrian Gonzalez, USF Patel College of Global Sustainability

Special thanks to Ward-Mitchell Civil Trial Attorneys for funding the 2018/19 TTF2S student internship program. Please join these individuals and community minded organizations who are working with us to give young people hands on agricultural and cooking experiences.

Ken Ward, Tampa personal injury lawyer, was born and raised in Tampa, Florida and is the sixth generation of his family to live in the city. He was educated in the public school system and attended Greco Middle School and C. Leon King High School where he was a member of the football, wrestling and track teams. Ken went on to obtain his undergraduate degree from the University of South Florida and then graduated from the Walter F. George School of Law at Mercer University.

Schoolyard Gardens Food systems can play a dual role: presenting living classrooms in which students are afforded engaging hands-on learning activities at the same time that they produce the elements of a food literacy. Successful farm to plate educational systems take the food literacy and food system transparency inherent in the farm to plate movement and marries it to the educational requirements of public schools. They include schoolyard gardens where school children learn how to grow a vast cross-section of fruits and vegetables. Visits to urban and rural farms to see food production at its source. Lessons in supermarket literacy to help students learn how to create inexpensive andhealthy meals. They offer culinary and menu development skills based on fresh and local ingredients and they seek opportunities to engage students in all components of a healthy local food system. Throughout all of these activities students are engaged in asking science, mathematics, and language arts and social studies questions. For this reason, teachers in subjects other than agriculture or culinary arts are afforded multiple opportunities to integrate the food system activities into their curriculum.

Food has become one of the most important cultural issues in the United States. Concerns about food sovereignty and food security have led to a general awareness and interest in local production of fruits and vegetables. Too, attention to obesity rates in children and the need to introduce a healthy diet in high poverty populations have grown significantly since the 1990's when a new foodism began to emerge in the United States.